About Dr. Leipziger...

Dr. Leipziger is the Managing Director of the Growth Dialogue, a network that works to extend economic growth to as many places on the planet as possible. Driven by a passionate belief that without growth, sustainable development and improvements in people’s lives are impossible, the Growth Dialogue seeks to connect high level policymakers and thought leaders with those whose policy decisions can benefit from practical experience and the latest work on economic growth.

Dr. Leipziger was Vice President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management (PREM) and Head of the PREM Network of more than 700 economists and other professionals working on economic policy, lending, and analytic work for the World Bank’s between 2004 and 2009. In this capacity he provided strategic leadership and direction to Regional PREM units as well as groups working on economic policy formulation in the area of growth and poverty, debt, trade, gender, and public sector management and governance. He was heavily involved in positioning the Bank on major economic policy issues and in managing the Bank’s overall relationship with key institutions – including the IMF, OECD, regional development banks and the European Union.

In 2006, Dr. Leipziger started serving as the Vice-Chair of the Commission on Growth and Development. The Growth Commission, which was chaired by Nobel Laureate Michael Spence, brought together twenty-two leading practitioners from government, business and the policymaking arenas, mostly from the developing world. Over a period of two years the Commission sought to gather the best understanding there is about the policies and strategies that underlie rapid and sustained economic growth and poverty reduction.